Brady Corbet’s acting career was quietly developing with roles in the likes of Melancholia, Simon Killer, and Force Majeure, when he surprised us all with his directorial debut: this stunning and ambitious rumination on violence scored by Scott Walker. A visually arresting period fantasy!

Delightfully playful, this postmodern portrait explores an offbeat life of invention by rejecting conventional biopic form. With stylistic whimsies ranging from omniscient narration to an anachronistic synthpop performance, Michael Almereyda’s rich meditation on legacy is positively electric.